"It was so lovely of you, Helen, dearest, to write me that good long letter in answer to the scrap I sent. I have put off answering it until I could tell you about our palmistry evening which Elsie gave us last night. She almost got into trouble by passing round little slips of paper in class, on which was written:
8# XXIV. Lc.
Palmistry.
"Miss Hill caught sight of one as it was being passed to Timoroso, and called her up to the desk. Seeing that Tim was almost ready to faint from embarrassment, Elsie spoke up quickly: 'It's mine, Miss Hill. It is just a reference. I had several slipped in here, between the leaves of my algebra.'
"Of course it was a reference. You can easily tell what it referred to when interpreted in the old way. Eight o'clock sharp. Room 24. Elsie.
"'A reference to what, Miss Gayland?' asked Miss Hill, in her most frigid tones.
"'To palmistry,' answered Elsie, calmly. 'A subject which I have been investigating for some time.'
"With that Miss Hill sent Tim back to her seat, and read us a lecture on the folly of such things, and the harm of allowing them to absorb our valuable time. Elsie was cross at some of the things she said, for she firmly believes in chiromancy. 'There can't be anything wrong in it,' she declared to us afterward, 'for papa would not have given me this big, expensive book about it, with all these fine plates. See! Here is an impression of Gladstone's hand, and lots of celebrated people. Miss Hill has no right to class all believers in palmistry with mountebanks and gypsies, and she certainly betrays her ignorance of a noble science when she mixes it up with clairvoyance and common fortune-telling.'
"Still, Miss Hill's remarks made some change in Elsie's plans, for when we gathered in her room at the appointed time, it looked just as usual, although she had intended to have it darkened and hung with black curtains.
"After we had all taken our seats, Elsie retired behind a heavy screen in the corner. She had previously cut two slits in it, through which we were to thrust our hands. She made us take off our rings, so that she could not recognise us by them, and commanded absolute silence. The light was on her side of the screen, and the semi-darkness in which we sat, added to the breathless silence, made us unnaturally solemn. The girls motioned me to put my hands through the screen first; and I wish you could have seen the pantomime they went through as she enumerated my familiar traits of character. They nodded their heads in emphatic agreement, each one growing more eager every moment for her turn, as all recognised the truth of Elsie's reading. Some of us found that we had very odd propensities, but it was Timoroso who made the sensation of the evening. When her turn came I could see that she had become almost frightened at Elsie's remarkable power of discernment, and was much wrought upon by the impressive silence of the dimly lighted room.
"After a moment of careful examination Elsie began: 'This is a psychic hand which shows a delicate constitution, great sensitiveness, and abnormal nervousness. The life line is very short, the head line good, but running too far down into the mount of Luna. That may indicate only unusual imaginative power, or if other lines confirm it, it may mean a tendency to insanity.' Then she gave a startled exclamation and paused a moment. 'Oh, girls!' she cried. 'How interesting! I have never found this mark in a hand before, but it is in one of the plates.'